Friday, January 27, 2012

Sporting KC News to End Your Week

Sporting KC's match up with LA on April 7th at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park has changed times and stations. Yesterday the team announced that the game would now kick off 1 hour earlier at 3pm Central time. The move in start time is to facilitate a station move for the game, as instead of being on ESPN2, the game will be on the mothership, ESPN. It's been a long time since KC has had a game, let alone hosted one. I honestly can't quite remember when there last was one.

Good news for KC on the front of potentially signing more internationals. Aurelien Collin posted today on Twitter after practice that he was headed to meet with his lawyer to discuss his green card. While the part about becoming an American citizen is a ways away, the good news in Sporting KC terms is that KC will free up at least one international spot. With the spots currently full Collin getting his green card would be a boost. With Jimmy Nielsen and possibly Korede Aiyegbusi also working on their cards' KC could have plenty of international space available.

Sporting KC International News

The next few bits of news are related to Sporting KC players and their potential national team aspirations. The first has to do with Roger Espinoza, while the last two, courtesy of The Daily Wiz have to do with Lawrence Olum, and supplemental draft pick, Pablo Punyed.Not surprisingly, Espinoza left off Honduras camp roster

With Sporting KC currently in preseason camp, this news isn't surprising, but Roger Espinoza was left off the camp roster ahead of Honduras' February friendlies. Honduras' coach named a roster today for the camp that includes the man who put the dagger in KC's 2011 season Carlo Costly. Espinoza will obviously stay with KC as they continue preseason.

Alex over at The Daily Wiz today posted a comment and a video link about KC's Lawrence Olum heading to Kenya in February. The timing of the trip to Kenya would seem odd considering the fact that KC will be right in the middle of preseason, but Olum has wanted to represent his country for a while at this point and this may be the best chance for Olum to appear for the Kenyan national team. Kenya is scheduled to have two matches on the 23rd and the 29th against Egypt and Togo, and one would assume that Olum would hope to make his international debut and become the 32nd player to appear for their full national team while a member of Sporting KC. Still the timing of the trip is just a bit odd being in the middle of preseason.

There are some rumors out of El Salvador, that supplemental draft pick, Pablo Punyed could be looking to potentially join Teal Bunbury and Daneil Cyrus in Olympic qualifying. Rumor out of El Salvador is that the St. John's product participated in some tryouts down there for the national team in preparation for Olympic qualifying. El Salvador has been grouped with the US, Canada, and Cuba in a group that will play in Nashville.